What role can better quality of public finances play in supporting Europe's long-term economic growth prospects? This question was at the centre of the 2008 European Commission workshop on public finances. It was largely motivated by the pressures put on European economies and their budgets from...

Conventional fiscal accounting methodologies do not appropriately account for governments’ noncash policies, such as their contingent liabilities. When these liabilities are called, budget costs can be large, as evidenced by the United States’ saving and loan crisis. In general, deficit...

This paper develops a political-economy model of the budget process focusing on the common pool problem of the public budget. We show that the externality arising from the fact that public spending tends to be targeted at individual groups in society while the tax burden is widely dispersed...

The paper analyzes the bearing of Islamic teachings on the conduct of fiscal policy. It is shown that Islamic teachings do not prescribe any rigid system of public finance. The major emphasis is on the state’s responsibility to assure at least a basic minimum standard of living for all...